The "Graces" of Photography: Discovering a Passion

Up until a year and a half ago, I wasn't very interested in photography.  In fact, I thought it was cheating.  To me, it seemed like all someone had to do was point their camera at a pretty scene, push a button, and viola!  A photograph, a piece of art that look less than a minute to create was made.  So what changed for me? Why is photography all of sudden a passion of mine?  Two key factors-- getting a digital camera for Chanukah two years ago and admiring and becoming inspired by my friend Grace's photography.  Both of these have led me toward the graces of photography and admiring it as an art form.

From a very young age, I loved the visual arts-- drawing, painting, sketching, doodling, etc.  When I was young, I began keeping drawing journals of sketches and black and white designs.  I also taught myself how to write in calligraphy and in fancy lettering, including 3-D bubble letters.

Above:   A black and white design

To the right:  Black and white trees

In high school, I took full advantage of the art program, taking almost all of the visual art classes that my school had to offer  (Drawing, Painting, Advertising Design, Fabric Design, Jewelry Making, Printmaking, etc.)   As the Co Editor-in-Chief of my high school's art-literary magazine, I helped run layout workshops (and this was pre-computers!) so we used layout boards.

In college, I went on to explore my interest in art-- photography never entered the picture.  As the art editor of the art-literary magazine, Prism, I scanned pieces of art into the computer and the extent that I used Photoshop was to fine-tune and touch-up pictures.  Of the two art classes I took-- Figure Drawing and Oil Painting-- I particularly enjoyed sitting on the floor with charcoal, smudging it with my fingers to create lines and shadows.  

All of the art forms that I enjoyed engaging in took time to complete-- whereas photography only took a click of a button.  What I loved about the visual arts was being able to create as I worked on it and seeing the evolution of a piece.  I could change the composition as I went along.   Even if I was drawing a still life or a landscape, I could add or take out elements that worked for my piece.

With photography, (pre-digital cameras), everything felt so permanent.  Once a picture was taken, that was it.  There was no way to work on it, to make it better.  There was no view screen to assess how a picture had turned out to determine if more should be taken.  Photography was also an expensive art form with which to experiment-- having to pay for rolls of film and their development.  One year, in summer camp, I learned how to develop my own pictures.  Although it was neat to see the pictures slowly appear before my eyes, I felt removed from the experience of actually taking the pictures.  If I didn't like how the photographs turned out, there was little I could do about it.  It was difficult to figure out what to do differently next time, when I was so far removed from the scene.

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That all changed when I received a digital camera for Chanukah two years ago.  The whole art of picture taking was completely transformed for me.  Inspiration struck one morning at school upon seeing beams of sunlight pouring through the branches and leaves of several trees.  Captivated by the sight, I felt compelled to capture it on film.  The immediacy of the experience gave me an adrenaline rush.  As soon as I clicked a button, an image appeared on the view screen.  I could assess whether I had captured what I had intended to.  If not, I could change my angle, position, location to attempt a different effect.  Playing around with multiple variables, I could experiment with how the picture came out and check each time on the view screen, instant feedback.  

This experience sparked my interested in nature photography.  I started to become more mindful of scenes outdoors that would lend themselves to good pictures.  

I began paying more attention to the nature photography that my friends posted on Facebook, especially Grace's.  Grace's pictures, and her photographic techniques, transformed the way I thought about photography.  In the past, I always thought of it as you take your camera, capture a picture of a pretty scene or you wait for a picture worthy scene to unfold and you take a picture.  Grace's photography taught me that there is much more skill, technique, and artistic eye involved than that.  It's about thinking, "What do you want the viewer to see?"  Depending on the answer, zoom in or zoom out to highlight different aspects.  

Her photography showed me that zooming in on one subject, without much else in the composition, can make for an interesting picture.   So I began taking some close-ups.

One of the most eye-opening features of photography that her pictures showed me is how creative the experience can be.  With digital photography, the picture can be transformed long after the button is clicked (unlike developing your own photos).  Techniques that she uses in iphoto, such as cropping and rotating, opened up possibilities to me-- the idea that the picture does not need to be perfect when you first take it.  You can have an idea, an image, a feeling, a pattern that you want to capture and then manipulate it into the shape or the direction that you want afterward.  

Grace's series of shots capturing the reflection of images in water have particularly intrigued me-- especially the ways that she crops and rotates images to focus in on patterns, details, and colors.  Viewing her pictures inspired me to experiment with the same techniques.  

The following is a picture that was a reflection in water and I cropped and rotated it to make it the focus.

Through paying close attention to Grace's pictures and conversations with her about photography, I have learned some of the graces of photography-- ways to think about pictures and the picture taking experience, both during and afterward.  

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Another grace of photography is incorporating the picture taking into the experience itself so as not to disrupt the scene.  My friend, Brenda, introduced me to two highly contrasting views of photography.  Some people feel that taking pictures removes the photographer from the experience, erecting the lens as a barrier between herself and the experience.  Other people feel that cameras enhance the experience-- allowing the photographer to relive it again and again long after it has ended.  

For me, photography is a very mindful experience.  While trying to capture a particular scene, mood, color, pattern, I often find that I am more attentive to details than I would have been otherwise, such as the patterns on the frog below.

 

Another grace of photography is learning how to be so quiet that you can let nature unfold before you, without disrupting the scene.

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The last but certainly not final grace for a photographer is being attuned to her own particular interests.  For the last few years, I've been wondering why I am so interested in certain aspects of pictures (shadows and patterns).  Over the past week it has finally occurred to me that these are the same features in the visual arts that have always intrigued me.  

My fascination with patterns originates from the black and white pattern designs I started drawing in middle school. My interest in shadows comes from the intense focus on them while sitting on the floor, smudging charcoal across the paper while doing life drawings in college.  My work with 3-D bubble letters is also all about shadows. 

I was fascinated by the patterns of the shadows on my porch this summer.

Although photography is a new passion that I've developed within the past year and a half, my interest in many of its visual aspects originated from older well-established artistic interests of mine.  

Thanks to my digital camera and Grace in helping me to learn and develop many of the graces of photography.  Through viewing Grace's pictures and talking with her about photography, I have come to appreciate the skill, technique, and artistic eye involved in this art form.  I'm excited to continue to develop my craft and my passion.

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To readers of this blog:  I'm interested in hearing about a passion that you developed when you were older and how you became interested in it.

Photography: My Olive Branch Offering to My Winter Nemesis, Ice

The last few winters my winter nemesis has been ice.  All kinds of ice have been out to get me (black ice, shiny ice, smooth hard ice, crunchy ice, ice mixed with snow).  You name it, all kinds of ice have caused me an assorment of falls including sliding down my front stairs fully armed with multiple bags (twice) and my legs completely falling out from under me while carrying a laundry basket filled with laundry!   These falls have resulted in a colorful (and quite impressive) array of bruises, weeks of soreness, and a grimace from my acupuncturist as she watched me painfully try to swing myself up on the table.  

Despite my understandable increased dread of the ice, I decided that this year I would try to make a peace offering with Mother Nature.  Holding out photography as an olive branch my deal has been:


"I'll appreciate your beauty during the winter if you promise not to attack me!"


Arming myself with my camera, I have tried to discover, appreciate, and capture the beauty of my winter nemesis, ice.  




Icicles

1.  Icicles particularly fascinate me.  I think that it is really cool how water can drip down, forming a long spear of ice that clings onto the gutters and the edges of houses and buildings despite the onslaught of the winter elements of snow, rain, and wind.  In this picture, extremely long icicles hang down from the side of my house.  They are what my friend's daughter calls "killer icicles". 

I am also intrigued by the fascinating shapes of icicles.  In this picture, a claw-shaped icicle has formed from water dripping off of a drainpipe by the side of my house.  

A few days later, after the fifth winter storm of the season, the icicle morphed into the following shape:

Frozen Spy Pond

When Spy Pond freezes over in the winter, it is a beautiful place to take pictures.  I'm particularly interested in how the ice captures the sunlight.  In this picture, the ice shimmers.  The sunlight seems to skip across the ice, highlighting the numerous textures of Spy Pond.

What was really exciting was that this picture was recently published in my local newspaper!

The ice in the pond can even look really beautiful when it's breaking.  My friend, Caroline, commented that there is a violent feeling about this picture, yet it's so natural and innocuous at the same time.

I'm also fascinated by how ice appears to change colors.  In the picture of Spy Pond, below, the ice seems to take on the pretty blues and pinks of the sky.

And in this picture of Spy Pond, only parts of the pond are frozen, creating a neat effect of water and ice that take on the brilliant blues of the sky.

Being mindful of the beauty of Mother Nature in the winter has helped me to come to appreciate the ice more.  Although I still dread forecasts of wintry mixes, freezing rain, and black ice, my hatred of the ice has lessened.  It has been exciting to capture intriguing aspects of ice including the amazing shapes of icicles, the way that sunlight illuminates and skips across ice, the way that frozen ice in a pond can hold onto the pretty colors of the sky, and even the beauty of broken ice.  While ice is still my winter nemesis, photography has helped me to be mindful of its beauty.
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To readers of this blog:  I am interested in hearing from you about how engaging in an art form (visual art, music, writing, acting) has helped you to see the positive in and appreciate something that you previously and/or continue not to like.   I am also interested in hearing from you about what you like about ice in the winter.   If you feel so inspired, please leave a comment.  I look forward to hearing from you!

The Courage to Make Mistakes: The Life of a Photographer

When I first started taking nature photographs, I assumed that as I acquired more experience, it would take me less pictures on each outing to get good shots.  What I hadn't realized at the time was that as I became more passionate about photography, I would become more intrigued with trying out new techniques.  Inspired by incredible pictures that my friends had taken, I was compelled to experiment with multiple aspects of photography including taking pictures at different angles, with different lighting, and from different vantage points.  As I have become a more experienced photographer, the number of pictures that I take has actually increased as I experiment more and more.

What has decreased though, is the amount of photographs that I share with my friends on picture sharing sites such as Facebook.  During the last year and a half, I feel like I have developed a more discriminating eye when it comes to choosing which pictures to share.  This has come about through careful analysis of my own and friends' pictures to determine what it is about individual photographs that make them so compelling.  In the beginning, I often needed to ask my friends which pictures they particularly liked since I didn't yet have criteria for what made one picture better than another.  Now, I feel like my eye is more trained and can often figure out what makes some pictures interesting and not others.

As I've spent more time with my camera and looking at pictures, I feel like I am living up to one of my favorite quotes about art.  It is from The Dilbert Principle, by Scott Adams.  "Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes.  ART is knowing which ones to keep.  

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A few months ago, I wanted to create a blog post entitled "Best of Seasonal Photography from the Past Year".  However, in looking through my pictures on iphoto, I realized that I did not have many captivating winter pictures.  During the last few weeks I've come to realize that taking original winter pictures is challenging.  With white snow blanketing most of the landscape it can be difficult to capture contrast, color, and shadows on film and to break away from the typical shot showing the amount of snow.  As a result, I've tried taking winter pictures in new ways and attempted to find original subjects.  

Below are the results of some of my experiments with creativity and my art of determining which ones to keep.

1.  This is a picture from the blizzard of December 26, 2010:

Late in the afternoon, it was too cold and windy to venture outdoors to take pictures of the storm in progress.  Standing on my front porch, I decided to capture some images looking outward, although snowflakes swirled around me.  Taking numerous images, many of them were obscured by the white blobs of snow.  However, in the picture above, the white blobs enhanced the image of a snowy, blustery afternoon in New England.

2.  This is a picture of Spy Pond, right across the street from me on New Year's Day, 2011.

There was still much snow on the ground and Spy Pond was completely frozen.  That day an incredible sunlight illuminated the winter wonderland.  Intrigued by light and shadows, I wanted to capture the effect of the sun on the frozen pond.  Many of the pictures I took showed too much glare from the sun, were too bright and overexposed, or the effects of the sunlight were not interesting enough.  The picture above perfectly captured the mood of the day and the brilliance of the sunlight.  I gave it the following caption:  Shimmering ice-- love the way the sunlight seems to skip across the ice.

3.  This is a picture taken from my living room window during the winter storm of January 12, 2011.

Warm and toasty in my apartment during a Snow Day, I wanted to take pictures of the incredible amounts of snow but did not want to venture outside.  I decided to experiment with taking some photographs from the windows.  Many of these shots were utter failures--- the reflection of the flash against the glass, the mesh of the screen creating distracting patterns, etc.  I was lucky though and found this window which gave me a clear view of the winter landscape outside.  

4.  This is a picture of an icicle outside of my house on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

I love icicles.  To me, it is so neat how the icicles stay hanging for so long and reflect the light of the sun.  On Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, there were some incredible icicles hanging from my roof and from some branches near the drainpipe.  Trying to capture the beauty of the icicles was challenging-- even shooting pictures from multiple perspectives did not capture their illumination by the sun.  Then I played around with capturing the interesting shapes of the icicles instead.  This was my favorite of those series of pictures.  

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As I've become a more experienced photographer, I've had a lot of fun letting my creativity loose-- experimenting with different photographic techniques, taking pictures from different vantage points, and playing around with the aspect of the image that I want to focus on.  Although experimentation results in many mistakes, I learn so much from them about what works well and what does not work.  Over the last year and a half, I feel like I've developed a more artistic and discriminating eye for photography.  Now I feel like I am better able to figure out which of my photographs to keep.  All of my practice with photography is starting to pay off!  I finally feel like I have some Best of Winter Photographs and the first two pictures in this blog were recently published in the local newspaper!


To readers of this blog--  I am interested in hearing about times that you have let your creativity loose and allowed yourself to make mistakes.  How did this feel?  What were the results?  What did you learn?   If you are so inspired, I would love to hear about it in a comment.